Wednesday, 4 July 2012

The Story Of Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor

Some films end up in movie purgatory, we hear of them but rarely see a finished product, point in case is "Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor".

The movie plot sounded great - Allison suffers recurring nightmares and amnesia preventing her from remembering the past. She returns to camp to discover the secrets but when everyone that crosses her winds up dead, the question arises - is she Angela Baker or is she being stalked?

How awesome does that sound! As a fan of the franchise I was excited to hear all about this, then it just disappeared. Years went by and this film became forgotten, then footage of the film started doing the rounds on the internet and soon word was getting round Horror fans that the film was finally done and we'd see Angela back to her murderous ways.

Sadly we all fell for it, the truth was the film was never fully finished, only half finished and not even edited properly, it was basically production footage all stringed together and only showed up on Anchor Bays "Sleepaway Camp" box set as an extra, which was great to see but a sad end to a film with so much potential.

Then in November 2010, Fangoria magazine made an official announcement of the film's completion. The film was finished in the hands of John Klyza (producer), Jim Markovic (director) and Dustin Ferguson (editor). The final version was announced to run just over 70 minutes and was then currently seeking distributors. It was finally released on March 24, 2012. The wait was finally over.

But that didn't mean we got a great product, the footage was horrible matched, one scene would be grainy the next would be like new which makes for bad viewing, especially if you suffer from migraines! But we at-least got a finished version, which is something we thought we'd never see.

"Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor" is the film that would not die, but it's also a great example of how a legend can be better than a badly finished product.

If you want to see the production footage "Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor" then just click on the video below: